Author Archives: Teri Berry

Gestural drawing

For my C&G course we have been asked to explore gestural marks and drawings using Da Vinci’s “Deluge” as inspiration. To be honest I have enjoyed this far more than I thought I would when I first read through the module, at first I was a disappointed to not be making felt of some sort but I found the quick, uninhibited way of making marks on paper quite liberating (in the end).

This is da Vinci’s Deluge that I was instructed to use as a reference.

I have always found working from another artist’s work somewhat daunting, trying to reproduce someone else’s work usually results in disappointment that what I have produced is inferior in some way. I much prefer to take inspiration from other’s work and interpret it in my own way.

So I sat in front of “the Deluge” pondering how to approach it, making a few scribbles and doodles that loosely represented parts of the great work. Then I tried making a charcoal drawing. It wasn’t working.

It was time to go back to basics, I felt I needed to look at some real-life clouds instead of da Vinci’s interpretation and lucky for me I was in the “land of the long white cloud”, and we found ourselves driving towards gathering thunderclouds the next day so I took lots of photos and produced a couple of sketches.

Feeling more confident about cloud shapes and how light and shade create the illusion of lines and shape I took another look at the Deluge and produced this piece surprisingly quickly; less than an hour ignoring the time it took to dry after the wash. I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

Goodies from New Zealand

New Zealand beaches, especially on the west coast, are magical places, often stormy and moody and covered in jewels from the sea. My father in law lives just a couple of miles from one such beach, it is covered in literally thousands of shells and piles of drift wood of all sizes washed up by the stormy rolling sea. While it is not the most comfortable beach to walk bare-foot along it is a beach-comber’s treasure trove.

Here are a few of the pieces I collected, most of the drift wood pieces are the thickness of a biro. I am thinking of incorporating all of the pieces below into felt but these are still very much half-baked ideas.
On our way back from a weekend in Napier we stopped at a Paua (pronounced pow-a) shop. Paua is the kiwi name for abalone, I’m told a delicious shell fish but it is the iridescent quality of the inside of the shell that I am interested in. The shell is commonly used in jewellery and decorative items, I think it has potential for inclusion in felt.
This is another find from the beach, at first I thought it was a shell (it has the texture and weight of shell) but it is smooth on one side and rough on the other as if the rough side was attached to a muscle while the smooth side is more hydrodynamic, I wonder if it sealed an opening on a large mollusc of some sort? Do you recognise it / have any idea what it is? It is approx. 4 cm across and the smooth side is slightly concave. Whatever it is I love the heart shape and radiating ridges on the rough side. I see it becoming a pendant or adornment on a bag.